The creation of online services to the citizens' benefit is high on the government's agenda and we are moving towards this direction with the gradual digitization of the entire range of state services, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Thursday, during a joint press conference with the Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Nicodemos Damianou, for the presentation of ten new digital services of the Civil Registry Department, which have been developed by the specialized Digital Services Factory team of the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy and will be available as of June 27, via the online gov.cy portal, initially in Greek and in English at a later stage.

 

In his speech, the Minister of the Interior said that the launch of the digitization of the Civil Registry is part of the broader policy of the Government to digitize services with the ultimate goal of providing better quality services to citizens to combat bureaucracy.

 

He added that citizens will from now on be able to access the list of certificates issued, while the services where the documents are submitted will offer the possibility of confirming the validity of the certificates.

 

He further noted that through the use of digital services, the citizens of the Republic of Cyprus who are abroad or in Cyprus will be able to apply for, issue and receive the relevant certificate online, thus avoiding hassle at the service points and saving time.

 

He also said that apart from the services of issuing and renewing identity cards and passports, which require a visit to one of the service points to obtain biometric data, the process for the rest of the services is completed online easily and quickly, adding that these digital services are offered at a first stage in Greek, with the intention for them to soon be available in English as well.

 

"The gradual digital transformation of our country is a priority of President Christodoulides' governance programme. The creation of online services to the benefit of the citizen is high on the government's agenda and we are moving in this direction with the gradual digitization of the entire range of state services," Ioannou concluded.

 

On his part, Damianou said that this marks the beginning and constitutes part of a programme called "digital citizen", which includes a series of  actions for the digitization of services, namely e-governance, for which there is a need to accelerate efforts.

 

He added that the services are based on best practices and modern systems implementation standards defined by simplicity and accessibility, offering the citizen a uniform use of these services.

 

He also mentioned that these services are implemented using the so-called agile methodologies, ensuring and incorporating feedback from real users both during the design and during their final delivery, adding that another horizontal service is the updating of citizens' data based on a centralized registry, which is the Civil Registry, with correct and updated data for each citizen.

 

In closing, the Deputy Minister said that the new government portal gov.cy where all the new services being built to the new standards will be located, as well as existing ones that may not yet be fully digitized, will soon be available, while soon and during this year the "digital citizen" application will be introduced, so that documents can be accessed in digital form and within the application, providing even more flexibility in their use.